Best Protest Signs. Ever.

A detailed eyewitness report on the Discovery Institute’s conference revival at Southern Methodist University last weekend has been published. This bit (p. 3) is particularly good:

At this point, we were fed up with the sheer lack of science being discussed. (Remember, ID theorists claim to support a science, not a religion.) So we held up our signs. They bore questions such as, “Why do we have wisdom teeth if they do not fit our jaws?” and “Why did it take 20 species of elephant to go extinct to get two species that survived?” and “Why do the ribosomes (protein synthesizing machinery) in our mitochondria match those of bacteria?” to name a few.

Well, after holding up these signs for a while, the men on stage noticed and decided to answer one of them. They chose the last one, regarding ribosomes. Immediately, the only person on stage with any knowledge of biology, Michael Behe, took up the question.

His answer was that ID theory does not allow for explanations regarding interspecies commonalities such as those implied in the question.

In short, his answer was that he couldn’t explain it with ID theory.

But then he went on, describing how a Creator may have given humans similar ribosomes for no good reason. His logic was that when one sees a car with a radio, one can ask how that radio got there and there are many explanations.

One such explanation was provided by Behe, and it was so very realistic: He said the radio could’ve fallen from an apartment and landed in the car, suggesting that a Creator could have simply thrown ribosomes all over the place, and they just landed in humans by chance. Very likely, indeed.

Over the course of the event, two of my friends decided to stand up slightly and move a row ahead. When they did, they were manhandled by SMU’s finest officers and escorted out.

102 Comments

Awesome opinion piece. I had dreamed of getting 100 people to show up wearing fake green beards to these kinds of events, but that would have been too esoteric.

I am simply amazed at the gall of these people trying to keep flyers from being distributed by hand. They ought to lodge a formal protest with the university against the sponsoring organization. The DI ought to get banned for behaving like that.

Interesting to hear Behe and the others finally becoming a bit more honest for a change. Too bad we don’t know the name of the ID Prop. who admitted that the DI’s mission was true.

“Why do the ribosomes (protein synthesizing machinery) in our mitochondria match those of bacteria?”

They do?

The mammalian mitochondrial ribosome (mitoribosome)1 has a smaller sedimentation coefficient (55 S), compared with the bacterial ribosome (70 S), and consists of large 39 S and small 28 S subunits (5). The former contains 16 S and the latter contains 12 S rRNAs as RNA components. The mammalian mitoribosome contains no counterpart for the 5 S rRNA found in bacteria. A recent physicochemical study has revealed that the rat mitoribosome has a large molecular mass (3.57 MDa) compared with that of the Escherichia coli ribosome (2.49 MDa) (6), which is explained by the fact that the protein to RNA ratio is completely reversed between these two ribosomes (7). The protein composition of the mitoribosome has been estimated to be about 75%, which indicates that large parts of bacterial rRNA domains have been replaced by protein components during mitochondrial evolution from a eubacteria-like endosymbiont in eukaryotic cell progenitors.

Maybe it’s my tiny brain, but my wisdom teeth haven’t caused me any trouble. (I know they are a bitch to keep clean, but the primary reason to pull them hasn’t surfaced). Not sure if I got an evolutionary advantage or what.

Immediately, the only person on stage with any knowledge of biology, Michael Behe, took up the question. His answer was that ID theory does not allow for explanations regarding interspecies commonalities such as those implied in the question.

Oh, Zarquon. You’re frassin’ me, right? This man is a faculty member in a SCIENCE DEPARTMENT?

Hmmmm – Let’s see. You’re a faculty member in a Department of Intelligent Design. Your star graduate student is writing her dissertation proposal and suggests that it might be fruitful to explore the reasons for genetic and developmental homologies between species. (Okay, being in your ID department, she doesn’t realize there’s a literature on this subject, but at least she’s thinking.) What do you do?

A. Require her to remove the part of the proposal that suggests she’s curious about the subject and wants to investigate it.

B. Call the security people and have her kicked out of the building.

C. Write “Just move along, there’s nothing to see here” on her draft proposal and never bring up the subject again.

Immediately, the only person on stage with any knowledge of biology, Michael Behe, took up the question.

His answer was that ID theory does not allow for explanations regarding interspecies commonalities such as those implied in the question.

In short, his answer was that he couldn’t explain it with ID theory.

Well at least Behe is honest about it. Got to give him a point here. Evolutionary thought can explain that and lots more. That is one of the reasons the theory was developed.

I’m liking my creo theory more and more. They have decided to suspend disbelief permanently and enter into a fantasy world. We all do this when watching a movie, TV, or reading a fiction book, temporarily.

It is probably harmless. They have a right to do so in a free country. They could just as easily have decided to be Jedi knights and wander around in robes carrying light sabers and looking for Sith Lords and their starship.

The big problem is trying to force this fantasy world on people who don’t want to enter into it by of all things, sneaking it into biology classes. This is wrong, immoral, illegal, foolish to our nation, and dumb. Just say no.

“Why do the ribosomes (protein synthesizing machinery) in our mitochondria match those of bacteria?”

They do?

The mammalian mitochondrial ribosome (mitoribosome)1 has a smaller sedimentation coefficient (55 S), compared with the bacterial ribosome (70 S), and consists of large 39 S and small 28 S subunits (5). The former contains 16 S and the latter contains 12 S rRNAs as RNA components. The mammalian mitoribosome contains no counterpart for the 5 S rRNA found in bacteria. A recent physicochemical study has revealed that the rat mitoribosome has a large molecular mass (3.57 MDa) compared with that of the Escherichia coli ribosome (2.49 MDa) (6), which is explained by the fact that the protein to RNA ratio is completely reversed between these two ribosomes (7). The protein composition of the mitoribosome has been estimated to be about 75%, which indicates that large parts of bacterial rRNA domains have been replaced by protein components during mitochondrial evolution from a eubacteria-like endosymbiont in eukaryotic cell progenitors.

Yes, they do. If you sequence the RNA in a mitochondrial ribosome, the sequence is a much closer match to the RNA in the ribosomes of a proteobacterium than it is to the RNA in any other organism’s ribosomes. Also, antibiotics such as chloramphenicol will inhibit the mitochondrial ribosome and the ribosomes of bacteria, but they won’t affect the function of the ribosomes in the cytosol of your cells. (But try fitting all of that on a sign…)

Now, if the sign had said “My mitochondrial ribosomes are identical to bacterial ribosomes in every respect!”, that might be worth quibbling over.

Would you be so kind as to explain your reference’s figures four and five and the patterns found therein, without utilizing common descent? As a personal request, would you be so good as to explain them using Intelligent Design? I first heard of ID around about 1999, and I know it has been around for nearly 20 years now, but I’ve never heard it used to explain this kind of data. I’d also like an explanation for the following: “Among the 21 proteins in the small subunit, 13 proteins were identified as prokaryotic homologues and eight proteins were specific to the mammalian mitoribosome (Table I). The amino acid sequences of the human and mouse mitoribosomal proteins along with their counterparts from other animal mitochondria and prokaryotes were aligned as shown in Fig. 4. Significant homology between mitoribosomal proteins and their bacterial counterparts indicates that the distribution of proteins within the mitoribosome and the prokaryotic ribosome is similar, as observed in a previous study on 39 S large subunit proteins (22).” How about explaining ref 22? You had some reason for picking out this paper so I’m sure you’re quite knowledgeable about its contents so this should be no problem for you.

Yes, but it will also include a remote, one oversize video screen, a library of John Wayne movies along with a sampling of porno films on CD but in plain brown wrappers, and a Barcalounger with cupholder for all the scholars to use.

Would you be so kind as to explain your reference’s figures four and five and the patterns found therein, without utilizing common descent sense? As a personal request, would you be so good as to explain them using Intelligent Design?

DMA, if you were paying attention, you would know Professor Behe already did that. How could you forget the radio theory?

[Sorry, but I first read your question as “… without utilizing common sense”]. It just seemed to fit.

[Behe’s] answer was that ID theory does not allow for explanations regarding interspecies commonalities such as those implied in the question.

Warning. Turn off your irony meters before reading further.

For at least 12 years Behe is on record admitting that “interspecies commonalities” are transmitted through “biological continuity,” his most recent rephrasing of the politically incorrect “common descent”. So, technically, ID has no need to explain them because it is not challenging mainstream science (evolution) with respect to that particular question.

This would have been a perfect opportunity for him to turn to those IDers who seem to deny common descent, ask them to specifically say how they think it happens instead, and once and for all shut up those of us who claim that ID is not science.

To Mr. Kellogg: You have scoliosis because of original sin. When you are raptured up to heaven at the end of times if you are a true believer your spine will be perfect. Any questions/-please consult your nearest premillenial dispensationalist..Your presence at this website; however, may bring your religious sincerity into question.

I’m liking my creo theory more and more. They have decided to suspend disbelief permanently and enter into a fantasy world. We all do this when watching a movie, TV, or reading a fiction book, temporarily.

Indeed.

Nelson quoted

The protein composition of the mitoribosome has been estimated to be about 75%, which indicates that large parts of bacterial rRNA domains have been replaced by protein components during mitochondrial evolution from a eubacteria-like endosymbiont in eukaryotic cell progenitors.

Only someone who has permanently suspended disbelief would quote a paper that uses evolution as a mechanism as if it supported ID.

Behe actually answered the question initially appropriately, saying that the current scientific understanding is that mitochnodria were mostly likely independent prokaryotic organisms that were symbiotically appropriated by eukaryotic ancestors.
Once granting this scientific explanation, Behe then claimed that science cannot explain how or why this symbiotic relationship was formed. His reference to radios falling into cars was his way of illustrating how unlikely it would have been for this relationship to form by random chance. The implication, of course, was that since science supposedly cannot explain it, and it was too unlikely to happen by chance, therefore the Designer must have taken the two organisms and placed them together, creating eukaryotic life.

Does the human intellect come from original sin as well? The ability to question the dogma fed to us from toddlerhood onward certainly sounds like a punishment Yahweh/Allah/Vishnu/Zeus/Odin/Zoroaster would have given us.

“Behe then claimed that science cannot explain how or why this symbiotic relationship was formed. His reference to radios falling into cars was his way of illustrating how unlikely it would have been for this relationship to form by random chance.”

Really. So I guess the fact that there are some species of amoeba that have aerobic bacterial endodymbionts doesn’t count as “understanding”. Come on, this is not just something that happened a billion years ago. We can still observe this process going on and can duplicate it in the laboratory.

The “how” is engulfment by endocytosis. The “why” is mutualism. The endosymbiont benefits by getting a protected place to live and access to nutrients. The host gets an efficient mechanism of arerobic respiration and a source of ATP. That is why the relationship has been so stable and profitable.

Of course how or why are not nearly as important as the fact that it actually did occur. The genetic evidence is quite clear that it did, which Behe does not seem to dispute. Given that, how unlikely it would have been becomes irrelavent.

“Maybe it’s my tiny brain, but my wisdom teeth haven’t caused me any trouble. (I know they are a bitch to keep clean, but the primary reason to pull them hasn’t surfaced). Not sure if I got an evolutionary advantage or what.”

If you can’t keep them clean, then they will definitely cause you problems eventually. I suggest pulling them one every 6 months or so. You get REALLY good drugs! I wish I had a few more to get pulled.

I asked if any experimental evidence existed, showing that ribosomal function would not be destroyed if a structural RNA were removed.

My question to Paul Nelson is this: Is there any experimental evidence showing that ribosomal function is the result of “intelligent design?”

Since I’m not interested in waiting until 2010 for an answer, I’ll provide an answer for Paul:

Paul Nelson’s proxy writes: No, Doc Bill, there isn’t experimental evidence for anything about ID. As you know, ID is a religious proposition that ribosomal function was designed by an unknown Intelligent Creator at an unknown time for an unknown purpose. I guess we’ll never know. By the way, have you ever looked at your hand? I mean, really, really, really looked at your hand. It’s like, wow!

If similarities are evidence of common ancestry, then dissimilarities are evidence of — what?”

Subsequent evolution, including selection and drift.

Sheesh.

“Put another way, what molecular characters would show that eukaryotic mitochondrial ribosomes and bacterial ribosomes arose independently of each other? One cannot say that similarities count as evidence for common ancestry, unless one knows what would count as evidence against common ancestry.”

Can you arrange the patterns of similarity in a nested heirarchy? If not, then that is evidence against common ancestry.

Hypothesis 2: All modern life arose from a single origin, as opposed to there being multiple origins, the descendants from which combined at some point early in life’s history.

Hypothesis 3: The Tree of life is dichotomous, as opposed to there being any lateral transfer or re-joining of separate lineages.

Hypothesis 1 is not the same as Hypotheses 2 and 3. Don’t pretend that it is.

I would not be surprised if Woese or Doolittle reject Hypotheses 2 and/or 3 for the events very early in the history of life. I don’t know of any serious scientist who rejects Hypothesis 1. If you feel that Woese or Doolittle specifically reject Hypothesis 1, present clear evidence for it.

Dr. Nelson’s reply:

Both Woese and Doolittle have consistently argued over the past decade that extant life on Earth descends from more than one cell (organism). On their view, there never was a universal common ancestor, meaning an organism to which all extant life traces its ancestry. For Woese, the original cellular ancestors of the three domains — Eukarya, Archaea, Bacteria — arose independently: their cellular architectures represent a polyphyletic geometry. Woese writes:

Extant life on Earth is descended not from one, but from three distinctly different cell types.

For his part, Doolittle argues that the base of the tree of life represents a mangrove (multiple independent roots terminating in the prebiotic milieu), and, like a mangrove, no single root draws all the others together, as would be necessary under a strictly monophyletic geometry. Under the heading, “Is a single universal ancestral cell or species really necessary?” Doolittle argues

Thus, there is no more reason to imagine only a single first kind of cell as the progenitor of all contemporary life than there is to imagine only Adam and Eve as progenitors of the human species.

W.F. Doolittle, “The nature of the universal ancestor and the evolution of the proteome,” Current Opinion in Structural Biology 10 (2000):355-358.

Based on what you’ve written here, it’s clear that Doolittle rejects Hypothesis 3 and Woese rejects Hypothesis 2.

Let me repeat myself: “Hypothesis 1 is not the same as Hypotheses 2 and 3. Don’t pretend that it is.”

I’ll make my point even clearer, so that there’s no confusion: arguing that the history of life cannot be represented by a purely dichotomous tree with a single root is not the same as arguing that modern organisms do not share common ancestry. You seem to be claiming that there are modern organisms that never shared any sort of ancestor, cellular or pre-cellular. I do not believe that Woese or Doolittle would support you in this claim; I do not believe that the empirical evidence supports you in this claim.

Perhaps I am mistaken about the claim that you’re trying to make. If so, you have my apologies, but I would appreciate it if you would make your claim clear and precise.

How do Woese and Doolittle explain the fact that all three domains use exactly the same genetic code? How do they explain the nested hierarchy of ribosomal gene sequences? How do they explain all of the other shared commonalities if there were three independent origins?

Now drastically different genetic codes or complete lack of ribosomes in one domain, that would be evidence of independent origins.

It’s about microbes, lateral gene transfer, and how far back the common ancestor was. There is or was enough lateral gene transfer so that a tree is not a complete model of prokaryote relations. This hardly implies the Designer did it. Lateral transfer means more evolution; evolution works even better than we used to know. Search for the paper at Sandwalk for more discussion.

“What’s the OBSERVATIONAL (or experimental) evidence that ribosomes could jettison a structural unit such as 5S rRNA, without loss of function?”

Emphasis mine.

I wrote -

“Obviously, the fact that both bacterial and eukaryotic ribosomes do function can easily be observed. I guess that settles that.”

My tone may be light, but the fact is, this is a painfully obvious answer to your question as posed. Although 5s rRNA is not necessarily useless, ribosomes that lack it can be observed to function. Here’s a link to a basic discussion.
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ul[…]bosomes.html

I also wrote about the massive amount of other evidence for evolution; you chose to ignore that.

But you replied…

“You’ve assumed that different ribosomes share a common ancestor, and thus that any differences, such as numbers and types of structural rRNAs, evolved without disrupting function. That was however the point at issue. I asked if any experimental evidence existed, showing that ribosomal function would not be destroyed if a structural RNA were removed.”

Emphasis mine.

First of all, I never made an “assumption” about ribosomes in my life; it is the evidence that shows that ribosomes share a common ancestor.

Second of all, now you want an “experiment”. Of course, such an experiment is technically very possible. We can’t directly test that the earth goes around the sun by experiment (apologies if you perceive the heliocentric solar system as heresy); we can do indirect experiments only for that. We rely mainly on observation. But we could probably show, experimentally, what we already know observationally - that even in the abscence of a subunit, ribosomes will assemble and retain some function.

Probably such experiments have been done, not for the idiotic reason of responding to obsessive creationists, but to learn more about ribosomal physiology. In fact, there is a literature on the function of the 5s subunit.

But you don’t really want an experiment (you’d look for one yourself if you did), you just want to keep denying, largely by pretending that you said something other than what you originally said, that your point has been refuted.

You’ve been knocked out twice now. If you get up and begin swinging your fists again, you’ll be the only one in the ring, in an empty arena.

Well, I guess I was a bit more harsh than I intended during that last comment.

I certainly don’t feel guilt. Paul Nelson was being very slippery. First arguing against the similarities between the various types of ribosomes, while ignoring all the other evidence for evolution, and not providing the slightest insight into how ID explains ribosomes. Then changing his question when he got a very simple answer.

I don’t think you were being all that harsh. After all Nelson has definately been playing us.

Nelson claimed that you can’t use similarity as evidence for common ancestry if you don’t know what would count as evidence against common ancestry.

I replied that since all known organisms did share a common ancestor similarity is indeed evidence of common ancestry and I gave a list of criteria that could be used to infer that organisms did not share common ancestors.

Nelson replies that not everyone believes that all known organisms shared a common ancestor and cites references. Huh, I guess he knew all along what would constitute evidence against common ancestry.

I replied that this hypothesis does not account for the similarities between all known life forms. After all, none of the criteria I cited were fulfilled.

Nelson runs away without answering.

It’s always preferable to be civil. I do appreciate you guys putting up with me. But this guy just seems to want to play games.

As fascinating and often amusing as this discussion has been, I’d like to drag things back to the OT for a moment. For those who haven’t followed up Nick’s link to the SMU Daily Campus in detail, there’s been ID content on the opinion page for every day in the past week. The reader comment sections have been very lively (if occasionally buggy on a technical level). IDists of the most ignorant and pugnacious sort are all over it. Friday saw an op-ed piece by a Spanish lecturer at the university. Choice excerpts:

“I, for one, am weary of this arrogant stranglehold on knowledge, and science so-called, as if there were a single scientist or philosopher anywhere in the world who was there when it all happened (evolution, creation, the Big Bang) and saw God not do it!”

“Scientific materialists have been force-feeding me their one-sided perspective on reality for way too long.”

“If there is a Creator, then what we see around us is at best the debris of the creation event, whatever form it may have taken. Would you put much confidence in a Theory of French Cuisine based only on an analysis of the egg and flour spillage on the countertop and floor?”

Really, I’m not making those up. Anyway, there’s plenty of pushback from sharper minds, but one or two people from around these parts would be welcome. Clearly there are a lot of eyes watching those pages, many of them probably people who don’t give much thought to this subject otherwise (unlike most people who come here, I would imagine). At the very least, it’s entertaining to read.

Paul Nelson wrote:
“If similarities are evidence of common ancestry, then dissimilarities are evidence of — what?”

This is a creationist straw man. The evidence for common ancestry is not simply similarity. The evidence is the pattern and extent of similarities, which necessarily involves looking at differences too.

“Put another way, what molecular characters would show that eukaryotic mitochondrial ribosomes and bacterial ribosomes arose independently of each other?”

Their failure to fit into a nested hierarchy, of course.

“One cannot say that similarities count as evidence for common ancestry, unless one knows what would count as evidence against common ancestry.”

BACK TO DARWIN
Francisco Ayala, the UC Irvine biologist who won the National Medal of Science for groundbreaking work in evolutionary genetics and the origins of disease, will give a pair of free public lectures today and Thursday about Darwinism and intelligent design.

His first appearance comes at 7 p.m. today, when Ayala, a former Franciscan priest, gives a talk titled “Evolution and Religion: Concert, Not Conflict.” The lecture will be held in Schneiderman Hall, on Ring Road, next to McGaugh Hall.

On Thursday, Ayala will visit Chapman University in Orange to discuss “Darwin and Intelligent Design.” The talk gets started at 4 p.m. in Beckman Hall. He will accept questions from the audience after both lectures.